His victims were friends and family, the people who trusted him most. But, instead of making money for those who invested with him, he lost millions of their savings.
"He victimized people he had known forever," said U.S. Postal Inspector Matthew Carlson.
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Carlson is referring to Robert Loffredi, a financial broker who managed investments for clients, friends and family out of his small brokerage house. Authorities say he is also a liar.
"In reality, he did not invest that money. He took the money and used it for his own personal expenses, purchase cars, house payments, pay off credit cards," explained Special Agent Gregory LaBerta.
Postal inspectors and the FBI joined forces to investigate Loffredi after receiving complaints from investors about discrepancies on their statements.
"He made up false account statements showing that you have so many shares in a certain mutual fund or you have a treasury bill and it was making this much money," said LaBerta.
Dozens of people lost close to a total of $2.8 million.
"He was showing the gains on the account statements when there were really no gains and no investments," LaBerta said.
"He completely made it up," added Carlson. "The numbers he completely pulled out of thin air and kept them going."
Investigators call this an affinity scam. Loffredi took advantage of friends and family who trusted him. He knew some of these people 20 years.
"The guard was completely down for these victims. They had no reason to think there would be something wrong with what they are doing," said Carlson.
Some of the victims were elderly and they lost everything.
"Those are very hard victims. They can't go back out in the work force to earn money because some are in the 70s and 80s," said LaBerta.
Loffredi is serving six and a half years in prison and was ordered to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution to his victims.
Authorities say there are things you can do to protect yourselves from this kind of scam.
"Be leary of any guarantees, anytime someone says, 'I will guarantees a big return,' anything that seems too good to be true probably is," warned LaBerta.
"You should independently check that your money is being handled the way it's supposed to be done," added Carlson.